Wright begins with a post by John Goodman, published at the NCPOA Health Policy Blog, and titled “The Selling of Obamacare.” There, Goodman acknowledges, “As for the president himself, he is a complete enigma to me. I’ve never felt that I understood him.’ Goodman goes on to prove his point by comparing Barack Obama to Richard Nixon.

According to Goodman, when “the President suggested that most people will be completely unaffected by the new health law . . . he was lying.” After all millions who buy their own insurance in the individual market place are now getting cancellation notices. The President “looked directly into the TV camera and said something that was blatantly untrue . . . over and over and over and over again. You have to go all the way back to Richard Nixon to find something comparable.”

That’s one way of looking at things,” Wright observes, “but it’s certainly not the only way. Over at the Colorado Health Insurance Insider,/ Louise Norris counters with these words:

“Much has been said recently about how the ACA is causing a tidal wave of policy cancellations, and resulting in people losing coverage that they would prefer to keep. The frustrating part about this – as has generally been the case with every big uproar about the ACA – is that we’re not really getting a complete picture of what’s going on, and it’s hard to see the reality through all the hype and hysteria.

I agree.

Here is the larger picture: in fact, most Americanswill not be affected by Obamacare. The vast majority are insured by their employers. Medicare, Medicaid or the military. Of the 311 million people who now live in the U.S., just 15 million purchase their own insurance. They represent 5% of the population. And only some of the 5% who buy their own coverage are getting those cancellation letters,

The folks I worry about most are those who should qualify for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, but live in states that have refused to expand the program. (Often they are not eligible for Medicaid simply because they don’t have children, no matter how poor they are.)

The newest edition of HealthWonk Review, a round-up of some of the very best recent healthcare posts, is now online.Colorado Health Insurance Insider’s Louise Norris hosts this mid-summer edition of the review. She offers summaries of intriguing posts, along with evenhanded, insightful commentary. Both will help you decide which posts you want to read.
Many of her reviews whetted my interest. But here I want to call attention to just two entries covering topics that we don’t often read about on Healthcare blogs, as well a reassuring sane post summing up what Washington insiders say about the state of Obamacare. It will be a bumpy ride, but it’s heading into the station.

A History of China’s Health Care System

Norris reports that on :“The Healthcare Economist, Jason Shafrin, brings us a great summary of health insurance in China over the past half century. Until the end of the 1970s, there were three main health insurance systems in China that covered nearly everyone.
“But the wheels started to come off after that; by 1998 almost half of the urban population had no health insurance, and by 2003, 95% of the rural population in China was uninsured. “
Shafrin explains that a shift to “fee for service” health care seems to have exacerbated the problem: “Some have claimed that the stark increases in health-care are due to provider profit-seeking behavior in China’s fee-for-service system. . .
“This price structure that was originally intended to cross-subsidize the delivery of basic interventions creates perverse incentives for providers to supply sophisticated care wherever possible, by shifting demand from low-margin basic services to high-margin high-tech diagnostic services and drugs.”
Does this sound familiar?
The good news is that China, like the U.S., has set out to reform its enormous health care system.For details, see Shafrin’s post. .
As Norris observes: “While plenty of progress has been made there is still a long way to go.”
She could have been talking about either country.
Norris also spotlights Jared Rhoads’ review of The Autistic Brain by Temple Grandin. “If you’re interested in autism,” Norris writes, “Jared’s summary [suggests] that this book is a good place to start learning more. I’m adding it to my list of books to read, so thanks for the tip Jared!”
Here’s just a snippet from Rhoads’ review: “Gradin and coauthor Richard Panek trace some of the clinical history of the condition, explain what can and cannot be gained from techniques like neuroimaging, and share what they believe are some good child-rearing strategies for parents with autistic children. . . .Continue reading →

As Louise observes, “the details are sickening to read: One hospital group encouraged its docs to exaggerate the severity of patient conditions and needlessly admit patients from the ER to hospital beds in order to bill more for their treatment. Another hospital group that owns three hospitals and also partially owns an ambulance company was making patient transfers (using their own ambulance company despite slower response times) a top priority – to the extent that a doctor’s transfer rate was a factor in bonuses and performance reviews. An admin email stated that “the performance we are looking for are transfers.” Wow. Transfers just for the sake of racking up revenue – patient welfare had nothing to do with it, and was likely compromised when the slower ambulance company was used in cases where the transfer was actually warranted.”

Often doctors are afraid to stand up to greedy hospital administrators. But by banding together, physician groups can stand up for patients.

I would add that, in the past two doctors— working at separate non-profit hospitals—have told me about hospital administrators pressuring physicians to admit ER patients, even when they did not need to be hospitalized. This is how some hospitals “put heads on beds.”

When Universities Buy Inadequate Insurance for Their Students

On his blog, Duncan Crosstells the story of the Arizona State graduate student who died because his Aetna plan (a student plan purchased through the university) capped how much the insurer would pay out over the course of a lifetime at $300,000. It also didn’t cover prescription drugs. One might be tempted to blame the insurance company,Continue reading →

Nursing Homes, Nurse-Practitioners Developing More Expertise, Efforts to Block Exchanges, How Patients Respond to Evidence that Some Tests are Unnecessary, and Whether Obamacare “Screws” Young Americans . . .

This time around Peggy Salvatore hosts a Valentine’s Day Edition of Health Wonk Review –over at Healthcare Talent Transformation. Her round-up of some of the best of recent HealthCare posts includes:

— A piece on Health Affairs Blog by David Rothman investigating how Americans respond to “evidence that certain medical tests and screenings might be unnecessary, harmful, and not worth the money.” How do they react to research showing that some drugs are harmful? To find out, you’ll have to read the post. (You will find the link to this post, and all of the posts discussed below, here )

— Good news from Louise at Colorado Health Insurance Insider: A bill that would have repealed the 2011 law that created Colorado’s health insurance exchange/ marketplace, died in committee in a 9-2 vote. “Republicans and Democrats on the Committee on the committee rejected his portrayal of the Exchange– which has already made a lot of progress towards an opening date this fall.”

Louise adds: “Given the progress that Colorado has made over the past two years in creating the state’s marketplace and implementing various other healthcare reforms (both state-based, like maternity coverage and gender-neutral premiums, and ACA-related, including the recent push to expand Medicaid), I would say that Colorado is on track to greatly improve its overall healthcare outcomes.

She also includes a useful map showing the states that have defaulted on setting up Exchanges. As she notes “this doesn’t mean they will get a pass on Obamacare.” By law, the federal government will set up Exchanges for them.

— A post by Disease Management Care Blog’s Dr. Jaan Sidorov pointing out that non-physician professionals and lay-persons are managing to achieve a remarkable degree of medical expertise. This is, as Peggy notes, a controversial subject.

— A report that asks “do non-profit nursing homes really provide better care than their for-profit counterparts”? Over at Healthcare Economist Jason Shafrinanalyzes a study that suggests the answer is “Yes.” How do they arrive at that conclusion? Again, you’ll have to read the post.

— A post that takes on “a recent infamous article on Buzzhead ” claiming that Obamacare “screws” young Americans. Over at California Access Health’s Anthony Wright observes: “there are some obvious and non-obvious reasons why Obamacare is a boon to young adults. “ The non-obvious reasons are worth thinking about.